A new method for reducing local heat transfer data in multimicrochannel evaporators

Measuring the strong local variation in heat transfer coefficients in multi-microchannel evaporators is related to the inverse heat conduction problem (IHCP). As the local flow heat transfer coefficients change greatly in magnitude from single-phase liquid at the entrance to a peak in slug flow and then to a minimum at the transition to the onset of annular flow and finally a new substantial rise up to the outlet, a significant heat spreading occurs due to the heat transfer process itself, and this has to be accounted for when processing the data. Until now, IHCP has not been introduced in the experimental study of heat transfer in such evaporators when reducing local experimental data. In this paper, a new method for processing experimental local heat transfer data by solving the 3D IHCP is proposed. This method is then applied and validated Using two sets of single-and two-phase flow experimental data obtained with infrared (IR) camera temperature measurements. The 14 400 raw pixel temperatures per image from the IR camera are first pre-processed by a filtering technique to remove the noise and then to smooth the data, where the IR camera has undergone a prior inhouse pixel by pixel insitu temperature calibration. Three filtering techniques (Wiener filter, spline smooth, and polynomial surface fitting) are compared. The polynomial surface fitting technique was shown to be more suitable for the current type of data set. Then the 3D IHCP is solved based on a finite volume method using the TDMA (Tridiagonal Matrix Algorithm) solver with a combination of Newton-Raphson iteration and a local energy balance method. Furthermore, the present 3D TDMA method (named as 3D TDMA) is compared with three other post processing methods currently used in the literature, among which the present one is found to be more accurate for reducing the local heat transfer data in multi-microchannel evaporators. (C) 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Experimental investigation on flow boiling pressure drop and heat transfer of R1233zd(E) in a multi-microchannel evaporator

Navid Borhani, Houxue Huang, John Richard Thome

An experimental study on flow boiling pressure drop and heat transfer of a new environmentally friendly refrigerant R1233zd(E), in a parallel multi-microchannel evaporator was carried out. The silicon microchannels evaporator was 10 mm long and 10 mm wide, having 67 parallel channels, each 100 x 100 mu m(2), separated by a fin with a thickness of 50 mu m. Upstream of each channel, a micro orifice was placed to stabilize the two-phase flow and to obtain good flow distribution. The operating conditions for flow boiling tests were: mass fluxes from 500 to 2750 kg m(-2) S-1, heat fluxes from 6 to 50 W cm(-2), inlet subcooling of 5.8 K, and a nominal outlet saturation temperature of 35 degrees C for stable flow boiling. The test section's backside base temperatures were measured by an infrared (IR) camera. The stable flow boiling data without back flow was selected through flow visualization recorded by a highspeed camera coupled with a microscope. These data were then used to assess the applicability of existing two-phase pressure drop models, and to further develop a new empirical model suitable for the high mass flux operating conditions. This new pressure drop model was used to predict the local fluid temperature for the further heat transfer data identification. The fine-resolution local heat transfer coefficients were obtained by solving the three-dimensional inverse heat conduction problem. The experimental results showed that in the saturated flow boiling region the local heat transfer coefficient first decreased moderately in the very low vapor quality region (x < 0.05), then increased significantly but monotonically along the flow direction. The fine-resolution local heat transfer data at the saturated flow boiling region were compared with two groups of heat transfer correlations. The first one considered the flow boiling mechanism occurring in muliti-microchannels as a combination of nucleate boiling and forced convection boiling, while the other one associated this mechanism to liquid thin film evaporation, thus indicating a controversy. It is found that the flow pattern based model belonging to the second group yielded the best agreement with the experimental data, predicting 92.0% of this new database within 30%. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2016

Two-phase operational maps, pressure drop, and heat transfer for flow boiling of R236fa in a micro-pin fin evaporator

Navid Borhani, Chiara Falsetti, Hamideh Jafarpoorchekab, Mirco Magnini, John Richard Thome

Cooling the new generation of 3D high power electronic chips is one of the leading challenges in microelectronics, as it is a key to achieve high computational performance at lower cooling system power consumption, thus reducing the operating cost. Two-phase flow boiling in two micro-pin fin heat sinks is studied here for this cooling process. Each micro-evaporator has a heated area of 1 cm(2) and contains 66 rows of cylindrical micro-pin fins with an in-line configuration and diameter, height and pitch of respectively 50 mu m,100 gm and 91.7 mu m. The fluid tested is refrigerant R236fa. Channel entrances with and without inlet restrictions are tested in order to evaluate their relative effect on the stability of the flow. The inlet restrictions consist of an extra row of micro-pin fins with a larger diameter of 100 mu m placed at the inlet of the heated area. The present study investigates operational stable and unstable flow regimes, pressure drop and heat transfer performance for the two micro-evaporators (one with and one without inlet restrictions) by coupling high speed visualization of the micro-pin fins flow area with fine resolution infrared temperature measurements of the micro-evaporator base, which yields a 2D map of local heat transfer coefficients of the whole heated area. Working conditions tested have mass flux varying from 500 kg m(-2) S-1 to 2500 kg m(-2) S-1, heat flux ranging from 20 W cm(-2) to 48 W cm(-2), and a constant outlet saturation temperature of 30.5 degrees C. In agreement with previous studies for multi-microchannel evaporators, it is here observed that inlet restrictions extend the map of stable operational regimes, in particular toward lower values of the mass flux, without any appreciable increase of the pressure drop. Unlike evaporation through parallel microchannels, the heat transfer coefficient trends and magnitudes vary dramatically with the flow conditions (mass flux and heat flux), thus suggesting that micro-pin fins have a strong impact on the two-phase flow pattern development, in particular delaying the transition to annular flow. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2017

Fine-resolution two-phase flow heat transfer coefficient measurements of refrigerants in multi-microchannel evaporators

Navid Borhani, Sylwia Szczukiewicz, John Richard Thome

The time-averaged two-phase flow heat transfer coefficients were determined with a very fine resolution based on infra-red (IR) temperature measurements conducted over a 1 cm(2) heated area of a multi-micro-, channel evaporator. This experimental investigation included two low-pressure refrigerants, R245fa and R236fa, as well as one medium-pressure new refrigerant R1234ze(E) flowing in four different test sections. The number of microchannels and their cross-sectional areas were the same for all the tested micro-evaporators, respectively, 67 and 100 x 100 mu m(2). Channel entrances with and without inlet micro-orifices were tested for establishing stable flow. Using 90 x 90 pixel grid (and then averaged width-wise), 90 local heat transfer coefficients were measured from inlet to outlet, yielding a U-shape of the heat transfer coefficient trend, where the descending branch of the curve corresponds to the coalescing elongated bubble flow regime (CB), while ascending one represents the increasing heat transfer coefficient in the annular flow regime (AF). The effects of channel mass flux, wall heat flux, orifice expansion ratio, and fluid properties on the wall heat transfer coefficient were identified for a selected number of data sets. In terms of predicted heat transfer coefficient values, in both the CB and AF flow regimes, the experimental results were found to be in a good agreement with respective existing flow pattern-based heat transfer prediction methods. Whereas, in order to better reflect the obtained experimental U-shaped trend of the heat transfer coefficient close to the CB-AF flow transition (which is a churn flow), the joined model of these two was modified by proposing a new vapor quality buffer for the width of the transition. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Elsevier2013